When it comes to Iran, what the CIA veteran Ray
McGovern fears most is not an Iranian bomb: It is that Bush
may launch an attack before the elections to “get his numbers
up.”

He acknowledges that most of his colleagues in Veteran
Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS) don’t expect an
attack so soon. They think it will come, but after the election.

A congressional report issued in August titled
“Recognizing Iran as a Strategic Threat” does not reflect
conclusions of the intelligence community. “The CIA guys ...
don’t recognize the threat from Iran. You know why? Because
there isn’t any.”

McGovern, a former CIA analyst and a founder of VIPS in 2003,
expressed his views on Sunday, September 24, at a luncheon forum in
the San Francisco Unitarian Universalist Church, jointly sponsored by
the church’s World Community Advocates and the War and Law
League.

He gained national attention last May in Atlanta when he asked
Donald Rumsfeld, secretary of defense, “Why did you lie to get us into
a war that was not necessary?” McGovern then reminded Rumsfeld of
his prewar claim that Iraqis had weapons of mass destruction and threw
the latter’s words back at him: “We know where they are. They’re in
the area around Tikrit and Baghdad and east, west, south, and north
somewhat.”

Commending the antiwar leadership of “creative women of guts
and insight,” McGovern deemed them his inspiration in challenging
Rumsfeld. Hearing “a new reiteration of various lies, I said to myself,
‘Should I get up?’ Then I thought, Cindy Sheehan or Medea Benjamin
[Code Pink] wouldn’t think twice.”

McGovern served the Central Intelligence Agency for 27 years,
from Kennedy’s administration to that of George H. W. Bush’s. Among
duties, he conducted National Intelligence Estimates and prepared the
President’s Daily Brief. On retirement in 1990, he received an
Intelligence Commendation medal, but in March 2006 he returned it in
protest against CIA torture.

Scene: The White House

Is the idea of a sudden new war by George W. Bush far-fetched?
“I wish it were,” McGovern said. He bade his listeners to “Put yourself
in a little White House room with Carl Rove, Dick Cheney, and the
president, maybe Rumsfeld.” Bush’s aides tell him.:

“If the Democrats take the House, the next two years are going to
be purgatory.... You’re going to be impeached.... All the heads of all the
committees are going to launch investigations about — we won’t call
them crimes, but about the special liberties we took with the
Constitution and U.S. criminal law. And not only that, Mr.
President:...You’re liable for prosecution under the U.S. War Crimes
Act of 1996....

“This Iran thing: it’s pretty risky.... Unlike Iraq, Iran can retaliate
because Iran has an incredibly efficient military.... Air Force generals
tell us they have these great Stealth bombers. Nobody will know about
them until the bombs fall.... We can just knock out the nuclear potential
of Iran before they can react.

“That will give us a bump, because then we can say, ‘Look,
American people, now we’re in a broader war, and for God’s sake,
don’t pull the rug from under us by electing all those wussy
Democrats.’”

A former infantry intelligence officer, McGovern scoffed at the
“guys in the blue suits” — Air Force officers — who “think you can
win a war by dropping bombs and not getting hurt and leaving the
ground troops to come and clean up.”

Is Israel our ally?

McGovern faulted President George W. Bush for calling Israel
“our ally” and promising to come to its defense. “Israel is not our ally”
and the president cannot make it so just by stating “Israel is our ally,”
McGovern said.

“I always thought that this was a sign of prudence on the part of
U.S. policy makers. Why should we tick off the Arab regimes any more
than we already have. Why should we put ourselves in a position where
we would be inextricably involved in any hostilities that Israel is
involved [in]? I was dead wrong:”

In 1967 the U.S. offered Israel a mutual defense treaty but Israel
turned it down. He learned that from a VIPS member who was involved
in the ‘67 negotiations.

McGovern sees no nuclear threat from Iran. John Negroponte, the
director of intelligence, listening to his analysts, says Iran cannot
produce a nuclear bomb for five to 10 years, McGovern pointed out.
“So what’s the urgency here?... We’re told that Iran is threatening our
forces in Iraq. In fact, Iran is being very reserved with respect to Iraq....

“But the Israelis feel under some sort of pressure because they
think that once the Iranians have the know-how to have a nuclear
weapons, then their nuclear monopoly will be eroded and their field of
action will be somehow circumscribed.”

He placed Israel’s nuclear arsenal at about 300 weapons. When a
journalist friend accosted Negroponte some days ago and asked about
them, the latter said, “I don’t want to talk about that.”

McGovern said, “When a solution is proposed — ‘Let’s make a
nuclear-free Middle East; that should tamp down tensions’ — the
Syrians jump up and down. ‘Oh, that’s a great idea. Count us in. You’re
going to include the Israelis, of course?’ And we say, 'No, we weren’t
thinking of including the Israelis.’ How disingenuous is that?”

“The Crazies”

McGovern said those pushing the second President Bush’s
aggressive war policies “were around in the 80s when I was briefing the
first George Bush.... These folks were universally called ‘the crazies’:
Richard Perle, Paul Wolfowitz, Abrams.” Under the first President
Bush, they stayed at low levels on the advice of Brent Scowcroft and
Jim Baker, who said, “Keep them in positions where they can keep the
country out of trouble.” Firing them would have angered the right wing
of the GOP.

McGovern said the “crazies” came in with Bush Jr. in 2001, and
“this time they’re making our policy.”

Intelligence analysts do not recognize a danger or threat from
Iran. So, McGovern said, the administration got Rep. Peter Hoekstra
(R-MI), chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on
Intelligence to issue a faux intelligence estimate whose title betrays its
predetermined thrust: “Recognizing Iran as a Strategic Threat: An
Intelligence Challenge for the United States.”

The main drafter was Frederick Fleitz, an ex-aide to John Bolton
when the latter was assistant secretary of state. Fleitz had told a State
Department intelligence analyst that it was his duty to say that Cuba
possessed biological weapons because Bolton said so — sans evidence.

Similarly without evidence, the August report claims that Iran
seeks nuclear weapons, intends aggression against the U.S., and
probably has chemical and biological weapons. (Source: “Hoekstra’s
Hoax: Hyping Up the Iran ‘Threat,’” article by McGovern in
Antiwar.com, 8-26-06.)

That report reminded McGovern of the 2002 National Intelligence
Estimate titled “Iraq’s Continuing Program for Weapons of Mass Destruction,” which
helped to mislead Congress into voting for the Iraq war resolution.